Biology

Tentacool resembles a box jellyfish. It has a light blue, clear body with two large, transparent, red crystals on each side of its body, and one small one in the middle. It has two small eyes with black pupils and no visible irises near the base of its body. It has two tentacles laced with stinging cells. The tentacles extend from beneath its round, blue lower body, which has a cape-like formation in the back. Its entire body is made of 99% water - the remaining 1% containing the organ that makes its poison.

Tentacool absorbs sunlight and refracts it using water inside its body to convert it into beam energy, as seen in the anime. It is also able to control Pokémon it touches with its tentacles, which can regenerate. Tentacool can be found throughout the ocean. It will sometimes wash ashore and become shriveled and dehydrated, but may be revived if it is thrown back into the ocean.

In the anime

In the main series

Major appearances

Tentacool debuted in Tentacool and Tentacruel. A group of the Pokémon had been attacking Nastina's construction site, so she made a public announcement offering one million dollars to anyone who could exterminate them. Team Rocket took up her offer but were surrounded by a huge group of angry Tentacool, one of which evolved into a giant Tentacruel that subsequently went on a rampage before being stopped by Misty.

A school of Tentacool appeared in a flashback in A Cacturne for the Worse. May became scared of them due to being surrounded by them at one point in her childhood, and her mother attempted to catch her, thinking that she was a Tentacool.

Name origin

Menokurage may be a combination of 目の敵 menokataki (enemy) and 水母 kurage (jellyfish). Alternatively, it may be a pun on the expression 目の毒 menodoku ("poison to the eye", referring to a tempting thing but one that must not be looked at), considering that its evolution's name is ドククラゲ dokukurage.